In working with several thousand individuals who have been in cults, I have not been told by one of them that she or he went out looking for a guru to set her or him up in prostitution, flower selling, cocaine dealing, gun smuggling, child abuse, or living of garbage, which were the ways these various individuals had ended up while in the cult. They had not been seeking that.

Now, when you engage in cooperative activity with peers in an environment that you do not realize is artificially constructed, you do not perceive your interactions to be coerced. And when you are encouraged but not forced to make verbal claims to "truly understanding the ideology and having been transformed," these interactions with your peers will tend to lead you to conclude that you hold beliefs consistent with your actions. In other words, you will think that you came upon the belief and behaviors yourself.
Peer pressure is very important to this process:

• If you say it in front of others, you'll do it.
• Once you do it, you'll think it.
• Once you think it (in an environment you do not perceive to be coercive), you'll believe that you thought it yourself.